CONSTITUTION & RULES

Olympic swimming champion Park Taehwan will be looking to capture gold at the Asian Games.

Republic of Korea targets 65 gold medals in Asian Games

07 Sep 2010

It seems like only yesterday for Kim In-kun when he thinks back to the days of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where Korea broke into the world’s top five by notching 14 medals - six gold, six silver and two bronze. "I was really happy to see our players winning gold medals because I knew how hard they had trained in preparation for the Games," said Kim, head of the Taeneung Training Centre. "It also gave huge inspiration to other athletes in Taeneung."

Kim says he is more than confident that Korea will continue making progress at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, from November 12-27. The Games will feature 476 events in 42 sports, comprising 28 Olympic Games sports and 14 non-Olympic sports. On a recent afternoon in his office at the training centre in Gongreung-dong, eastern Seoul, Kim was busy looking through a stack of documents on his desk.

"We've been making predictions for the Asian Games," said Kim, flipping a piece of paper filled with numbers and flow charts. Kim expects host nation China to dominate as usual and Korea to compete with Japan for second place.

He cracks his fingers before grabbing his yellow highlighter. "OK. You see this chart - I am very confident we can win more than 65 gold medals," said Kim, drawing a straight line on the chart with a pen. He expects at least 12 in taekwondo and at least five from both shooting and judo. Four years ago, in Doha, Qatar, Korea garnered 193 medals, including 58 gold medals, to finish in second place. Japan won 50 golds.

Kim said that this time Korea is planning to send more than 1,000 athletes in 41 sports, aiming to win more than 65 gold medals and to secure second place. The 56-year-old Kim, however, admitted there is still room for improvement, in particular, in swimming and athletics, where the majority of over 85 gold medals will be awarded this year. "We still lag behind Japan in swimming and athletics," he added.

In the 2006 Games, Korea managed to win only one gold medal in track and field events and three golds in swimming. "But this year, we have more talented athletes and I'm sure we can add at least six more medals in swimming and athletics."